Lazarides Rathbone Place

On 1 June, Lazarides welcomes Brazilian artist Nina Pandolfo with a new body of work to their Rathbone Gallery. Feelings marks the artist’s London gallery debut with her ‘Spice Angels’ series, overflowing with lively patterned, vibrantly coloured canvases and sculptures.

In Feelings, the popular and expressive wide-eyed girls created by Pandolfo have acquired a mature and confident form in both style and character. Making a departure from her childlike, timid girls with glassy questioning eyes, her beauty-conscious and daring characters are more sophisticated with elongated forms and a deeper and more contemplative gaze. Whilst steering her fictional creations towards a more developed stage with plentiful references to the world of fashion, Pandolfo continues to seek inspiration from a certain playful sensitivity and treasured childhood memories.

Talking about her ‘Spice Angels’ Pandolfo explains, “Each one of the girls is more mature and striking, with a strong personality of her own which differs from the others. It isn’t the way it was when we were kids, we all wanted to dress the same way to create the feeling of belonging to the same tribe.” But for the artist, the age marked on an identity card is meaningless, “Mental age is more important. Girls adopt their own state of mind and are not chained down by time”.

The history of high fashion, Japanese trends and steampunk art have all contributed to the style and invention of Pandolfo’s girls, which don a variety of outfits from lacy burlesque corsets to science fiction inspired styles, alluding to both a retro and futuristic fads. Pandolfo comments, “Fashion on the street is totally free and can be translated as a cry of freedom. I went wild on mixtures, the fusion of the imaginary with the real, romantic with the sensual, amongst many other combinations.”

Nina Pandolfo
Hailing from São Paulo, Brazil, 35 year-old artist Nina Pandolfo’s portfolio combines works connected with childhood memories and iconographies, more elaborate graffiti and notable works produced in her São Paulo studio, such as print designs, paintings and sculptures. Pandolfo has exhibited in galleries around the world and has painted in the streets and galleries of countries including Germany, Cuba, Spain, the United States, France, Greece, India, England, Japan, Puerto Rico and Switzerland. Pandolfo made her début in international exhibitions in 2002, displaying paintings in the group exhibition I Don’t Know at Die Farberie, in Munich, Germany.
www.ninapandolfo.com.br